Social Media Narratives on Menopause: An Online Experiment (Preprint)

<sec> <title>BACKGROUND</title> Social media is an increasingly prominent channel for communicating menopause information and experiences, yet the affective and behavioural consequences of different narrative framings remain unclear. </sec> <sec> <title>OBJECTIVE</title> We examined how distress, normalising and transformative narratives influence women’s immediate responses to menopause content online. </sec> <sec> <title>METHODS</title> In an online experiment, UK women aged 40-83 who were perimenopausal or post-menopausal (N = 737) were randomly assigned to view four anonymised and standardised social media posts reflecting one of three narratives: normal, distress or transformative. Participants then reported affective reactions, expected behavioural responses, and perceptions of the posts. Ordinal logistic regression models tested demographic predictors and condition effects, controlling for demographic factors. </sec> <sec> <title>RESULTS</title> Participants who viewed distress-framed posts reported greater levels of worry, confusion and anxiety, and reduced levels of reassurance, optimism and empowerment. Distress framing also increased perceived knowledge of menopause, despite participants feeling more negatively towards the posts. Neither distress nor transformative narratives influenced expected behavioural intentions to like, share, save, comment on, search for or discuss social media posts, compared to normal narratives. Post-menopausal status and older age were independently associated with less worry and anxiety. Participants rated distress and transformative posts as less representative of health professionals than normalising posts; transformative posts were also judged to be less representative of newspapers or TV. </sec> <sec> <title>CONCLUSIONS</title> Narrative framing shaped immediate affect but not intended engagement with menopause content. As public discussion expands, diverse, balanced narratives may help reduce stigma and temper the disproportionate salience of negative framing. This study advances understanding of how narrative framing shapes responses to health content online. </sec>